Word: warships
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Steadily, malignantly, the ugly stain of war spread over the leaden South Atlantic last week. Sophisticated missiles streaked across the waves, while less visible but no less deadly computer-assisted torpedoes coursed through the icy waters. Before the week was over, each side had lost a proud warship to these lethal new engines of destruction. For the first time, the military forces of Britain and Argentina had mauled each other on the high seas in the bizarre battle for possession of the remote, inhospitable Falkland Islands. Then, as if stunned by the enormity of their actions, the adversaries momentarily drew...
Armed with surface-to-air Seacat missiles and 6-in. and 5-in. naval guns, the venerable Belgrano, first commissioned by the U.S. in 1939,* had more firepower than any ship of the British fleet. But unknown to the 1,042 men aboard the Argentine warship, the cruiser-was being watched. Shadowing the Belgrano, as it had been doing for days, was a British nuclear-powered attack submarine, H.M.S. Conqueror...
...many exotic modern weapons that have come into play in the Falklands dispute (see box), flashed toward the Belgrano. Both hit their target. About 40 minutes later the stricken Belgrano disappeared from British and Argentine radar screens, the biggest casualty of the war. Indeed, it was the largest warship sunk in a naval engagement since Admiral William Halsey's attacks on the Japanese Inland...
...name, chosen by Texas Senator John Tower, was always intended to refer to the port city of 332,000 rather than the sacrament of the Eucharist. But many Roman Catholic priests and bishops insisted that selecting such a name for a warship that may well be armed with nuclear-tipped missiles was, in the words of Bishop Thomas Drury of Corpus Christi, "very nearly sacrilegious." Lehman, a Catholic, replied that church doctrine recognized the "unavoidable necessity of building and operating deterrent systems." Nonetheless, the protests swelled, and Representative Tony Hall, an Ohio Democrat, introduced a House resolution demanding a name...
...first the incident seemed mischievous, what British political aides in London were calling a "little local difficulty." But suddenly the fight became all too real. Some 2,500 Argentine troops, backed by an aircraft carrier, three missile destroyers and other warships, swooped down on a scattering of chilly South Atlantic islands. Waiting helplessly near the settlement of Port Stanley was a defense force consisting of a mere 40 British Royal Marines. After three hours of sporadic gunfire, in which one invader was killed and two others were wounded, the battle was over. Argentine forces also invaded the island of South...